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Copyright, 1900, hy Peter A. Port. 



NIAGARA 

AN ABORIGINAL 
CENTER OF TRADE 



BY 

PETER A. PORTER 



NIAGARA FALLS 
1906 



COPYRIGHT, 

PETER A. PORTER, 

1906. 



^.P.t.^llW^^ 



NIAGARA, 

AN ABORIGINAL 

CENTER OF TRADE 

THE printed story of Niagara 
dates back only three centuries ; 
and during the first three decades 
of even that period the references to 
this wonderful handiwork of Nature — 
which was located in a then unexplored 
region of a New World, a Continent 
then inhabited only by warring tribes 
of superstitious Savages— are few and 
far between. 

Three facts relating to this locality — 
and three only — seem to be proven as 
ante-dating the commencement of that 
printed story. 

That its "Portage" had long been 
in use. 

That it was then, and long had been, 
a spot for the annual assemblage of the 
Indians " for trade." 

[3] 



That here, and here only, was found 
a certain substance which the Aborig- 
ines had long regarded as a cure for 
many human ills. 

Before 1600, everything else that we 
think we know, and like to quote about 
Niagara, is only Indian Myth or Tra- 
dition ; possibly handed down for Ages, 
orally, from generation to generation, 
amongst the Aborigines ; or, quite as 
probable, it is the invention of some 
Indian or White man Mythologist of 
recent times ; the presumption in favor 
of the latter being strengthened, when 
no mention of the legend, not even 
the slightest reference thereto, is to be 
found in any of the writings of any 
of the authors, who (either through 
personal visits to the Tribes living 
comparatively near to the Cataract, or 
from narrations told to them by Indians 
living elsewhere on this Continent) had 
learnt their facts at first hand, and had 
then duly recorded them, — until long 
after the beginning of the eighteenth 
Century. 

14] 



It is probably to the latter class — 
modern traditions — even with all 
their plausibilities, based upon the 
superstitious and stoical nature of the 
Aborigines — that several of the best- 
known Legends concerning Niagara 
belong. 

Three of those legends, especially, 
appeal to the imagination. One relates 
to Worship, one to Healing, one to 
Burial, — embracing the Deity, Disease, 
and Death. 

The Legend of Worship is the 
inhuman yet fascinating one that the 
Onguiaahras (one of the earliest-known 
orthographies of the word Niagara), who 
were a branch of the Neutrals, and dwelt 
in the immediate vicinity of the Great 
Fall — and, according to Indian custom, 
took their name from the chief physical 
feature of their territory — long fol- 
lowed the custom of annually sacrificing 
to the Great Spirit " the fairest maiden 
of the Tribe "; sending her, alive, over 
the Falls in a white canoe (which was 
decked with fruits and flowers, and 

15] 



steered by her own hand) as a special 
offering to the Deity for tribal favor, 
and for protection against its more 
numerous and more powerful foes. 

And that, at the time of this annual 
Sacrifice, the tribes from far and near 
assembled at Niagara, there to worship 
the Great Spirit. If this Legend is 
based on fact, it would certainly have 
made the locality a famous place of 
annual rendezvous ; and at such a ren- 
dezvous the opportunities for the ex- 
change of many and varied commodities 
— "trade " — would surely not have been 
neglected. 

The Legend of Healing is, that any- 
one. Brave or Squaw, if ill, would 
quickly be restored to perfect health 
could they but reach the base of the 
Falls, go in behind the sheet of falling 
waters, — entering, as it were, the abode 
of the Great Spirit, — and, on emerging 
therefrom, be able to behold a complete 
circular Rainbow — which should sym- 
bolize the Deity's absolute promise of 
restoration to perfect health. 

[6] 



Of course, it was the difficulty and 
danger of descending into the Gk)rge, 
and of scaling the face of the cliff in 
returning — accomplishable in those 
days only by means of vines which 
clung to the rocks, or by crude ladders 
(formed of long trunks of trees, from 
which all branches had been lopped 
off about a foot from the trunk, and set 
upright, close to the face of the cliff) — 
that lends any plausibility to the 
legend. 

The Legend of Burial was, that Goat 
Island was specially reserved as a bury- 
ing-ground for famous chiefs and noted 
warriors. 

If this Legend was founded on fact,^ 
it certainly would have made Niagara 
at that time one of the best known 
and most frequented spots on the Con- 
tinent ; and at each visit for such 
burial, trade would doubtless have been 
carried on. 



[7] 



CIRCULAR RAINBOWS 

IT is possible to-day, as it most cer- 
tainly was in those traditional days, 
to behold a complete circular Rain- 
bow at Niagara; generally, only when 
one is out in front of the falling waters, 
close to the spray, near the level of 
the river in the Gorge; always with the 
Sun at one's back — and the Sun must 
shine brightly, and the Mist must be 
plentiful. 

It is possible to see a complete circu- 
lar Rainbow anywhere, on land or 
water, whenever one stands between the 
Sun and a sufficiently abundant mist 
(standing close to the latter), and the 
Sun is near the horizon. 

It is possible to see it, at some point 
at Niagara, often, — that is on every 
bright day, — because that abundant 
curtain of mist is ever present; and the 
Gorge, by reason of its great width and 

[8] 



depth, affords specially favorable oppor- 
tunities. 

This curious phenomenon is obtain- 
able easily and regularly only in the 
Gorge at the Goat Island end of the 
American Fall, from the rocks in front 
of the Cave of the Winds (for the pre- 
vailing winds of the locality are from 
the southwest, which bring the spray 
cloud into the best relative position at 
this point), or from the deck of the 
steamboat, at certain parts of the trip, 
— and from both only in the afternoon. 

It can sometimes be seen from Pros- 
pect Point, and from the Terrapin 
Rocks — in the early morning, when the 
spray-cloud rises towards the north. 

It can also, sometimes (at the season 
when the Sun sets farthest to the north- 
ward), be seen from the rocks out in 
front of the American Fall, below Pros- 
pect Point. 

This was the spot where the Aborig- 
ines would most easily have tested the 
efficacy of the Legend; for their descent 
into the Gorge was made at a point on 

[9] 



the American shore, not so very far 
north from the end of that Fall. 

When white men first settled near 
the Cataract, in the first decade of the 
19th Century, the location of the 
"Indian Ladder" was amongst the pres- 
ent overflows from the mills of the 
Lower Milling district. That, by rea- 
son of the "debris slope" of the Gorge 
being highest at that point, had doubt- 
less been its location for ages. 

The fact that, even at the most acces- 
sible (and that by no means easily 
reached) end of the Fall in the Gorge, 
the entire conditions of the Legend 
could so rarely be fully complied with, 
would have been to the unscientific 
minds of the Savages only an additional 
incentive to a firmer belief in it. 

It is also observable from the rocks 
beyond and below Terrapin Point, on 
the Goat Island side of the Horse-Shoe 
Fall ; but the climb out to that point 
is both arduous and dangerous, and is 
very rarely attempted. 

No such phenomenon can be seen 

[10] 



from the Canadian shore, because there 
are no rocks out in front of that end of 
the Horse-Shoe Fall on which one can 
stand. 

Were one to stand upon the apex of 
the Rock of Ages, or on the apex 
of any other high rock at the base of 
the Fall, at noon, when the sky was 
clear above, and the currents of air 
happened to surround the base of that 
rock on all sides with spray, as one 
turned completely around one would 
be in the center of a complete circular 
Rainbow — which would be below the 
level of the feet — and of which one 
would see but the half at any portion 
of the turn. 

At Niagara, when one gazes on a 
complete circular bow, as seen against 
the perpendicular curtain of spray, the 
center of the circle will always be lower 
than the point where one is standing. 
This is necessarily so, from the very 
nature of things, — because the Sun, 
one's head, and the center of that circle 
must be in a line. 

[11] 



When the point of observation is 
high enough, and the spray-cloud 
spreads out extensively enough, it is 
possible to see two concentric, complete 
Rainbows at one time. In fact, one 
does often see a portion of the arc of 
such a second bow; but three complete 
concentric bows, or three arcs of bows, 
are never seen at Niagara, nor any- 
where else. 

George William Curtis, in "Lotus 
Eating," records, — 

" There [at the Cave of the Winds], 
" at sunset, and there only, you may 
" see three circular rainbows, one within 
" another," — 

He does not say, " complete circles " ; 
he doubtless meant "arcs." He does 
not say he saw them; so in the absence 
of a more definite statement, it was 
certainly merely hearsay to which he 
referred. 

John R. Barlow, who has been a 
guide at the Cave of the Winds for 
over thirty years, says that on numer- 

[12] 



ous occasions during that period he has 
seen two complete circular Rainbows at 
one time, at that point. He observed 
it twice, and only twice, in 1905. 

In 1872, Professor Tyndall, with Bar- 
low as his guide, made an exhaustive 
study of the Goat Island ends of the 
American and Horse-Shoe Falls. As 
he was gazing at a complete Rainbow 
circle, Barlow told him that he had 
sometimes seen two complete concen- 
tric bows at one time. " That is possi- 
ble," replied Tyndall. 

"And I have heard people say they 
have seen three such bows ; though I 
myself have never seen the third," said 
Barlow. 

"Because it is an impossibility," 
answered Tyndall. "The second 
bow is merely the reflexion of the 
first. A third bow would be a shadow 
of a shadow ; and no one can see 
that." 

Had this Legend of Healing been 
found recorded in any of the early 
chronicles, it would have been the earli- 

[13] 



est known reference to Niagara in its 
relation to Medicine ; and would have 
associated the Cataract therewith long, 
long before the advent of the white 
man. 

But, alas ! it is not so found ; and no 
trace of it can be met with, until a very 
recent date. It has so much the ap- 
pearance of a made-to-order story, 
such a specially-prepared-to-fit-the-lo- 
cality aspect, it savors so strongly of 
an attempt to make the early Indian 
Mythology conform to the Christian 
story of the "Bow of Promise," that 
its Aboriginal authenticity may well 
be doubted. 



[14] 



FIRST WHITE VISITOR 

WE do not know, and we never 
shall know, the name of the 
first white man who gazed 
upon the Cataract of Niagara ; that 
marvelous spot, the scenic wonder of 
the World, that glory of Nature, which 
has been referred to as " The Emblem 
of God's Majesty on Earth," — where, 
in the words of Father Hennepin, in 
1697 — 

"Betwixt the lakes Erie and On- 
"tario, is a great and prodigious ca- 
" dence of water, which falls down after 
"a surprising and astonishing man- 
" ner ; insomuch that the Universe 
" itself does not afford its parallel." 

Which description, even to-day, two 
Centuries later, stands out as the most 
impressive, as well as the quaintest, 
brief mention of Niagara that was ever 
penned. And Father Hennepin also 

[15] 



gave to the World, in the same volume, 
the first known picture of Niagara. 

It was unquestionably a Frenchman 
who first, through pale-face eyes, saw 
the great Cataract; and it was later 
than 1608, the year when the ancient 
City of Quebec was founded, and white 
men first settled in the northern part 
of this Continent. 

Possibly, though improbably, he may 
have been one of those holy men, 
Priests of the Catholic Church, who 
devoted their learning, their strength, 
and their years to the cause of their 
Maker ; who daily risked their lives, 
as alone they braved the hardships and 
the sufferings of long journeys through 
pathless forests, and who encountered 
the fury of unknown savages, as they 
carried the Gospel to Tribes who dwelt 
along the shores of mighty waters, in a 
vast and an unexplored wilderness ; 
and tried, though in vain, to lead those 
strange peoples to the Ways of God. 

It is more likely to have been one of 
those fearless and hardy men, one of 

[16] 



the earliest members of what later be- 
came a distinct class — the Coureurs de 
Bois, or Woodsmen — a class founded 
by Champlain ; on a correct principle 
for commercial intercourse and the ex- 
tension of sovereignty, under condi- 
tions as they then and there existed 
(but probably without any full appre- 
ciation of the important and prominent 
part it was destined, later, to play in the 
development of New France) ; when, 
in 1610, he gave a young Frenchman, 
Etienne Brule, to the Algonquin chief 
Iroquet; who, in appreciation of Cham- 
plain's confidence, gave him a young 
savage named Savignon, as a pledge of 
future friendship. 

Brule was the first Frenchman known 
to have joined the savages, to become one 
of them, and adopt their manner of life. 
He spent years amongst them, was a 
woodsman or trader, learnt their lan- 
guages, was Champlain's personal inter- 
preter among the various tribes, and 
was often sent as Ambassador from the 
French at Quebec to savage Nations. 

[17] 



Beloved and trusted by the Indians 
for years, traveling all over the North- 
west, claiming to have discovered Lake 
Superior, and a copper mine on its 
shores (in proof of which he brought 
back samples of that metal to Quebec), 
he was finally tortured, put to death, 
and eaten by the Savages. 

By reason of his acquaintance with 
many tribes, of his occupation, and of 
his travels, there is no one who is more 
likely to be entitled to the distinction 
of having been the first of the white 
man's race to behold Niagara than this 
same Etienne Brule. 

From his intimacy with Champlain, 
he must have known — what Champlain 
knew and had recorded — of the exist- 
ence of such a waterfall ; indeed, it is by 
no means improbable that many of the 
details of Champlain's maps (especially 
those relating to regions which Cham- 
plain never saw, but which Brule did 
visit) were drawn from the latter's 
descriptions. 

From his intimacy with Iroquet — 

[18] 



Brule spent the better part of eight 
years in his Country and in that of his 
allies ; being the territory lying to 
the north of Lake Ontario — he must 
have known what Iroquet knew of the 
location of such a waterfall (which was 
only about 150 miles from the center 
of his territory, and a journey of that 
distance was of small moment to the 
Indians of those days); and when Iro- 
quet went to it as a "trading place," 
Brule doubtless accompanied him. 

It must also be remembered that it 
was this same chief, Iroquet, who later 
confirmed to Father Daillon the renown 
of " the great River of the Neutrals " — 
that is the Niagara — as a Center of 
Trade ; whose location he knew well, 
but refused to divulge to the Priest. 

Knowing of such a wonderful water- 
fall's existence, and its general location; 
being a "trader," and Niagara being 
even then a well-known Center of Trade, 
the probabilities are that Brule visited 
it at a very early date. 



[19] 



A TRADING PLACE 

BUT, while white men were no 
doubt at Niagara early in the 
17th Century — possibly as early 
as 1611 — and while we know that 
Traders and Priests were in its imme- 
diate vicinity at various times prior to 
1669; and while we have good reason 
to believe, that in that latter year 
LaSalle himself explored the whole of 
the Niagara Frontier; yet it is not 
until 1678 that we have any positive 
record of any visit, nor any description 
of the Cataract by a man who claimed 
to have actually seen it. 

Father Hennepin's first work, "Lou- 
isiana," published in 1681, tells of that 
first recorded visit, and gives the first 
description of Niagara by an eye-witness. 

At the time when that first unnamed 
white man saw the Cataract the Indians 
had, and firmly believed in, at least one 

[20] 



positive tradition regarding it ; one 
which had long been believed in by the 
tribes far and near, and which had long 
been turned to good account in trade by 
former generations of Indians who dwelt 
at Niagara; and which was believed in 
and maintained for many a year after- 
wards. It was a tradition which had 
long caused the vicinity of the Cataract 
to be known far and wide as, and to be, 
a great Center of Trade ; because it 
related to a highly-prized commodity 
which was found and primarily procur- 
able only at this spot. 

The first printed direct mention of 
Niagara referred to its famous Portage. 
The two next references to it were indi- 
rect and poetic, and, in so far as geo- 
graphical location, certainly exempli- 
fied a poet's license. 

The second printed allusion to it, — 
an indirect one, as noted later, — was in 
regard to trade. 

Champlain was on the lower St. Law- 
rence River when, in 1603, he first heard 
of the Niagara Portage; Father Daillon 

[21] 



was within a hundred miles of the Cat- 
aract when, in 1626, he first heard of 
Niagara as a "trading place." 

When white men first became really 
acquainted with the Indians, 300 years 
ago, the various tribes had, and no 
doubt had long had; certain "trading 
places" where they annually met for 
barter. 

At that time, the Hurons and Algon- 
quins had such a meeting place on the 
upper Ottawa River. 

It was at such a trade gathering at 
Lake Saint Peter, that Iroquet, in 1610, 
received Brule as a gift. 

Father Sagard, who in 1625 was a 
Missionary among them at Lake Nipis- 
sing, has stated that the Hurons used 
each summer to travel for five or six 
weeks southerly, in order to meet the 
tribes which had goods they wanted ; 
and that they brought back those 
articles both for their own use and for 
sale to other tribes. From the direc- 
tion stated, and from other deductions, 
it is probable that that annual summer 

[22] 



journey of the Hurons " for trade " had 
Niagara as its objective point. 

That the Indians traded among 
themselves is unquestioned. When 
Cartier, in 1534, ascended the St. Law- 
rence River, the Indians of Hochelaga 
were smoking tobacco which had been 
grown in the sunny south lands. The 
Muskegons, around James Bay, traded 
their furs with their southern neighbors 
for birch bark, out of which to make 
their canoes. Axes and arrow heads 
of obsidian — a stone found on the 
lower Mississippi — were in use among 
the tribes to the north of Quebec. 
The Indian " trade " was not all done 
haphazard. The most of it was 
done at gatherings held at regularly 
agreed upon times and places. And 
in the selection of localities, Niagara 
must have been a favored meeting 
place. 

That there, and there only, were 
found those "Erie Stones," a much- 
sought-for article, was an important 
reason for its selection as such ; its 

[23] 



central location and its accessibility 
from all points were other reasons. 

No tribe which feared the fierce Iro- 
quois — and that embraced almost every 
known tribe — would have dared to go 
to a " trading place," when in order to 
reach it they had to cross the country 
of the Iroquois. But they could get to 
Niagara from all sides without touching 
that Iroquois territory. There they 
could meet and barter with tribes 
otherwise almost impossible for them 
to reach. 

The tribes of the southeast, and 
those of the northeast, could there 
meet in safety. 

Again, it was in the Country of the 
Neutrals, whose territory lay between 
that of the Iroquois and the Hurons. 
And Indian law decreed — and it was 
observed — that in the cabins of the 
Neutrals even those bitter foes, Iro- 
quois and Hurons, met in peace. 

Champlain was certainly the first 
white man to mention the Falls of Niag- 
ara in Literature; Brule was probably 

[24] 



Niagara's first white visitor; and equally 
probable, he was the first white man 
ever to "trade" there. One would 
like well to know the particulars of 
that "trade" — what he got and what 
he gave. 



[25] 



EARLY REFERENCES 

CHAMPLAIN and Brule are two 
names of surpassing interest in 
their relation to Niagara. The 
first unquestionably heads the long list 
of Authors who have ever written about 
our Waterfall; the other probably heads 
the infinitely longer list — comprising 
many millions— of those pale-faces who 
have ever visited our Cataract. 

That first reference to Niagara in all 
Literature is found in that of France, 
in 1603, when Samuel de Champlain, 
the subsequent founder of Quebec, the 
first Governor-General of New France, 
— and still the most picturesque figure 
in all Canadian history, — narrated, in 
his now excessively rare pamphlet, "Des 
Sauvages " (of which only about half-a- 
dozen copies are known to exist), what 
the Indians on the St. Lawrence River 
told him about this waterfall (for he 

[26] 



himself never saw Niagara), in these 
words : 

" Then they come to a lake [Ontario] 
" some eighty leagues long, with a great 
" many Islands [the Thousand Islands], 
" the water at its extremity being fresh 
" and the winter mild. At the end of 
"this lake they pass a fall [Niagara] 
*' somewhat high, where there is quite a 
" little water which falls down. There 
"they carry their canoes overland for 
" about a quarter of a league, in order 
" to pass the fall ; afterwards enter- 
" ing another lake [Erie] some sixty 
"leagues long and containing very 
" good water." 

In the same volume Champlain re- 
cords that another savage told him, — 

" That the water at the western end 
" of the lake [Ontario] was perfectly 
" salt ; that there was a fall about a 
" league wide, where a very large mass 
" of water falls into said lake." 

It was not the wonders nor the 
beauty of the Cataract that impressed 
itself upon the minds of those savages, 
and that led them to furnish to Champ- 

[271 



lain — and so to the white man's world 
— the very first knowledge of the exist- 
ence of Niagara. No ! What most 
impressed the Cataract upon the minds 
of those Aborigines was the fact that at 
this point, the Falls themselves, to- 
gether with the Rapids for a short dis- 
tance above them, and for a long 
distance below them, were an insuper- 
able obstacle to water — that is, canoe — 
navigation ; that here they were 
obliged to make a long "portage." 
It was the only break in an otherwise 
uninterrupted water travel of hundreds 
of miles ; which, going westward, ex- 
tended from a point on the St. Law- 
rence, many miles east of the outlet of 
Lake Ontario, clear to the farthest end 
of Lake Superior ; and which, coming 
eastward, extended nearly 1,500 miles, 
from where the City of Duluth now 
stands even until it reached the bitter 
waters of the Atlantic Ocean in the 
Gulf of the St. Lawrence. 

In the same volume, " Des Sauvages," 
appeared a poem by one "La Fran- 
ce] 



chise," addressed to Champlain, in 
which mention is made of the " Saults 
Mocosans " or Mocosan Falls, " which 
shock the eyes of those who dare to 
look upon that unparalleled downpour." 

Mocosa was the name of that terri- 
tory vaguely called Virginia, and which 
seems to have embraced everything 
from New York to Florida, extending 
indefinitely to the west and northwest. 
The allusion is generally considered to 
refer to Niagara ; thus making Niag- 
ara's appearance in Poetry cotempo- 
raneous with its appearance in prose. 

In 1609, Lescarbot published his 
"Histoire de la Nouvelle France," 
wherein he quotes extensively (includ- 
ing the references to Niagara) from 
Champlain ; the work being reissued 
in several editions in subsequent years. 
And in 1610, Lescarbot, who was a 
great admirer of Champlain (he may 
himself have been "La Franchise"), 
produced a poem, wherein he speaks 
of the " great falls " which the Indians 
encounter in going up the St. Law- 

[29] 



rence, from below the present site of 
Montreal, "jusqu'au voisinage de la 
Virginia " ; which, under the above- 
noted boundaries of Virginia, has been 
stretched in imagination to include 
Niagara, but more likely meant the 
Rapids of the St. Lawrence. 

Champlain, in the map which he 
made in 1612, notes a " waterfall," but 
places it at the Lake Ontario end of the 
river ; still it is clearly meant for Niag- 
ara. 

Early references to this Niagara Re- 
gion — which up to about the middle of 
the 17th Century was owned and occu- 
pied by the Neuters, and after that time 
by their conquerors and annihilators, the 
Senecas — are to be found in that won- 
derful series of Reports made by the 
Catholic Missionaries in Canada to their 
Superiors in France, during a large part 
of the 17th Century, and known as the 
" Jesuit Relations." 

From them we learn that Father 
Daillon was among the Neutrals, and 
** on the Iroquois Frontier " (which was 

[80] 



east of the Niagara River, somewhere 
about midway between that and the 
Genesee River), in 1626. 

In a letter, dated at Tonachin, a 
Huron village, 18th July, 1627, Father 
Daillon told of his visit to the Neuters 
the year before. In it he wrote: 

" I have always seen them constant in 
"their resolution to go with at least 
" four canoes to the trade, if I would 
" guide them, the whole difficulty being 
" that we did not know the way. Yro- 
"quet, an Indian known in those 
" countries, who had come there with 
" twenty of his men hunting for beaver, 
" and who took fully five hundred, would 
" never give us any mark to know the 
" mouth of the river. He and several 
" Hurons assured us well that it was 
" only ten days journey [from the Hu- 
" ron Country] to the trading place ; 
" but we were afraid of taking one river 
"for another and losing our way, or 
" dying of hunger on the land." 

The above quotation, which was 
given in Sagard, 1636, was omitted 
from Daillon's letter by Le Clercq in 

[81] 



his " Premier Etablissement de la Foi," 
1691. In his translation of the latter 
work, John Gilmary Shea, in a note 
concerning this very passage, says : 

"This was evidently the Niagara 
"River and the route through Lake 
" Ontario," and he adds : " The omis- 
" sion of the passage by Le Clercq was 
"evidently caused by the allusion to 
" trade." 

That omission was doubtless at the 
instance of the French Government, 
whose permission was then a necessity 
before any book could be published. 
That Government knew the impor- 
tance and the advantages of Niagara, 
both as a strategic point and as a Cen- 
ter of Trade. Only four years before 
Le Clercq's book appeared a French 
army, under De Denonville, had built 
a fort there ; but the hostility of the 
Iroquois (incited by British agents) 
had forced its abandonment a year 
later. Anxious to again possess it, plan- 
ning now to do so by diplomacy rather 
than by arms, the French Government 

[33] 



would naturally have objected to any 
published allusion to the locality as a 
point of Trade, — which could in no 
way have aided its designs, but by 
further calling Britain's attention to 
Niagara's importance, would naturally 
cause her agents to be still further 
vigilant toward frustrating any move 
of France for the control thereof. 
In the same letter Daillon says : 

" But the Hurons having discovered 
" that I talked of leading them [the Neu- 
** trals] to the trade, he [Yroquet] spread 
"in all the villages when he passed, 
" very bad reports about me * ^ "^ in a 
" word, the Hurons told them so much 
" evil of us [the French] to prevent their 
" going to trade * ^ * adding a thousand 
" other absurdities to make us hated 
"by them, and prevent their trading 
" with us ; so that they might have the 
"trade with these nations themselves 
" exclusively, which is very profitable to 
" them." 

Yroquet, who was Champlain's friend, 
as before mentioned, being a close ally 
of the Hurons, evidently had no desire 

[33] 



for a Frenchman to open trade directly 
with the Iroquois — the sworn foes of 
the Hurons — and thus to divert any 
of the trade which he carried on with 
the French in the Huron Country. 

So the first white man known to have 
been on the Niagara River (in 1626) 
wrote about it as a "trading place." It 
clearly was regarded in that light, at 
that time, both by the Neutrals and by 
the Hurons; those being the only two 
tribes which Father Daillon had visited. 
And if it was so known to the tribes on 
the west and northwest, there was no 
reason why it should not have been 
so known — and it no doubt was so 
known — to the tribes to the south, to 
the east, and to the west. 

On his map, in 1632, Champlain con- 
tinues his location of the Cataract at 
the point where the river enters Lake 
Ontario; and marks it, "Falls at the 
extremity of Lake St. Louis [Ontario] 
very high, where many fish come down 
and are stunned." 

In 1640, Fathers Brebeuf and Chau- 

[34] 



monot, on their famous Mission to the 
Neutrals, crossed the Niagara River at 
Onguiaahra, a village of that Nation, 
which stood on the site of the present 
Lewiston. They probably never saw 
the Falls; their visit being filled with 
danger, hunger, and threats of their 
destruction by the very savages whose 
souls they were trying to save. Father 
L'Allement, their Superior, in his ac- 
count of their Mission, in the Jesuit 
Relation of 1642, speaks merely of "the 
village Onguiaahra, of the same name 
as the river." 

Another passage in his letter says, — 

" Many of our Frenchmen, who have 
" been here in the Huron Country, in 
" the past made journeys in this Country 
" of the Neutral Nation, for the sake of 
" reaping profit and advantage from 
"furs, and other little wares that one 
" might look for." 

And in all probability some of those 
Frenchmen had reached the Niagara 
River, in their trade with the Neutrals, 
before Father Daillon crossed its stream. 

[35] 



Niagara was then, as it is now, the 
geographical center of the eastern one- 
third of North America ; it was the 
center of population among the many 
and widely distributed Indian Tribes ; 
it was the most accessible, the most 
easily reached place, from all directions, 
in America. Indian trails led toward 
it from all points of the compass ; it 
was easily accessible by water from 
every quarter — and, by canoe, was the 
Indians preferred means of transporta- 
tion. 

It was thus easily reached by the 
tribes on the east and northeast by 
Lake Ontario ; by the tribes on the 
north by Lake Simcoe and the portage 
to Toronto ; by the tribes in the great 
west and northwest (covering a vast 
territory) by all the upper lakes ; by 
the tribes in the southwest by the Mis- 
sissippi, the Ohio, and the Alleghany 
rivers ; by the tribes in the southeast 
by the Susquehanna River. Even in 
aboriginal days — by reason of its cen- 
tral location, its portage, its position as 

[36] 



a Center of Trade, and its " Erie Stones*' 

— Niagara was the best and most widely 
known spot on the Continent ; even as 

— for other reasons — it is to-day. 
Father Ragueneau, in a letter written 

from the Huron Country, in Canada, 
in 1648, and published in the "Jesuit 
Relation" of 1649, makes the second 
known direct printed reference to the 
Falls themselves, when he writes, — 

" Lake Erie, which is formed by the 
"waters from the Mer Douce [Lake 
" Huron] , discharges itself into Lake 
" Ontario, over a Cataract of fearful 
" height," 

which description was, word for word, 
the same as is found in a letter, written 
not later than 1645, from that same 
Huron Country, by Docteur Gendron, 
but which was not published until 1660. 
The third direct printed reference to 
our Cataract was in a letter, written by 
Father Bressani, from that same Huron 
Country, in 1652, and published the 
following year. He wrote, — 

" Lake Erie discharges itself, by means 

[37] 



" of a very high Cataract, into a third 
"lake, which is still larger and finer, 
"called Lake Ontario." 

Thus, up to 1660, the Jesuit Fathers, 
Ragueneau and Bressani, were the only 
persons, except Champlain, who had 
made any direct printed reference to 
Niagara's Waterfall; like him, neither 
of them ever saw it; — the three known 
men, who first mentioned in print 
what is to-day the best known Cataract 
on Earth, wrote from hearsay, — and 
none of them gave it a name. 

Sanson, who, in 1650, had issued a 
map of North America, largely follow- 
ing those of Champlain, but improving 
on their accuracy (though not indicat- 
ing Niagara), in 1656, issued one of 
New France or Canada, whereon he 
both correctly places our Waterfall, 
and, for the first time in Literature or 
Cartography gave it a direct name, 
marking it "Ongiara Sault." Much 
information about Canada had no 
doubt been made public in France — 
by Missionaries and Explorers, with the 

[38] 



Government's approval — during those 
half-a-dozen years. 

Hennepin, in 1683, was the first per- 
son to use the word "Niagara," which 
has been the accepted name ever since ; 
though more than a hundred different 
ways of spelling it have been found. 
And from Hennepin's time, — by every 
known form of pictorial reproduction ; 
during the last forty years by photog- 
raphy more than all other forms put 
together — Niagara has been the most 
pictured and therefore the best known 
spot on earth. 



[30] 



DOCTEUR GENDRON 

IN 1660, another, and a most inter- 
esting reference to our Cataract ap- 
peared in print ; written by one Doc- 
teur Gendron. It does not appear that 
he ever saw it, but he seems to have 
learnt a good deal about it; of course 
he learnt it from the Indians; more- 
over, he learnt it from Hurons, who 
dwelt in more or less proximity to it; 
from men who, no doubt, themselves 
had seen it. He learnt it from the same 
source, not improbably from the same 
men, from whom Fathers Ragueneau 
and Bressani had gotten their less com- 
prehensive knowledge of it — for he had 
a special reason, in the line of his pro- 
fession, for learning about it. He had 
written home to France concerning it, 
at least three years before Ragueneau, 
at least seven years before Bressani, had 
done so. And, curiously enough, at 

[40] 



the very time when Docteur Gendron 
wrote his letters, Fathers Ragueneau 
and Bressani were also in that Huron 
Country. It is, therefore, more than 
reasonably certain, that all three of 
them being Europeans, all three living 
among the Hurons, — whose territory 
was not large, through which news of 
the presence of white men in those 
days traveled fast, — that they must 
have known each other, not only as 
acquaintances, but as intimates. The 
Priests had their headquarters at the 
Home of the Huron Mission, and the 
Docteur would, for every reason, take 
up his residence in that same Indian 
Village. Those three men, — with the 
exception of Champlain, the earliest 
known chroniclers of the existence of 
Niagara Falls, — ^were doubtless near 
neighbors and close friends, in the 
Huron Country, in the wilds of Canada, 
over two hundred and fifty years ago. 
In 1636, there had been published at 
Paris a work in five volumes, written 
by one Pierre Davity, who had died 

[41] 



the year before, entitled "The Whole 
World; With all its Parts, States, 
Empires, Kingdoms, Republics and 
Governments." It had been reissued 
at least twice by 1649. In all three of 
those Editions, "America, The Third 
Part of the World," had been treated 
of at some length — especially the 
Southern Hemisphere; — and while Can- 
ada had not been overlooked, there had 
been no mention of Niagara, 

In 1660, Jean Baptiste de Rocoles, 
who was both a Counsellor to the 
King and also his State Historian, re- 
issued the work, enlarged and "brought 
up to date." This issue was in three 
volumes, folio; rather ponderous tomes; 
well printed, and elaborately bound. 
As in the previous editions, it was issued 
by consent of the King, and with the 
approval of the Clergy; and it now 
had the official editing of the King's 
Historian. 

At the end of the portion relating to 
America — that is, at the very end of 
the last volume — its contents evidently 

[42] 



coming to Rocoles' notice at the last 
moment; probably after the work was 
entirely printed (for the preceding 
page bears the imprint, "End of Amer- 
ica"; and there is no mention of its 
contents in the Index), is a short Chap- 
ter entitled (translated), 

"Certain Special Information about 
"the Country of the Hurons in New 
" France. Recorded by the Sieur Gen- 
"dron, Doctor of Medicine, who has 
" lived for a long time in that Country." 

This supplementary Chapter is six 
pages in length, and, while it is not 
signed, we may justly assume that 
Rocoles himself, and none other, wrote 
it. It begins, — 

"One of my friends having lately 
" placed in my hands a few letters writ- 
"ten in the years 1644 and 1645, which 
" Sieur Gendron, native of Voue in 
"Beausse, had sent to him from that 
" Country [of the Hurons] , where he 
"was at that time; I have had the 
"curiosity to transcribe from them, 
"word for word, what follows; for a 
" better knowledge and acquaintance of 

[43] 



"those lands, newly discovered. And 
"I have done so the more willingly 
" because this person is worthy of cre- 
" dence, and he wrote these letters to men 
" of merit, who had travelled much." 

In the letters thus transcribed, "word 
for word," Sieur Gendron gives the lo- 
cation of the Huron Country, where he 
writes, — 

"I now am," "as between the 44th 
"and 45th degrees of Latitude; and as 
" to Longitude, it is half an hour more 
" to the west than Quebec." 

From his descriptions of the Lake 
Region, from his location of other In- 
dian tribes, and from the context, Sieur 
Gendron was very near the southern 
end of Georgian Bay, when he wrote 
those letters. That he was in the same 
Indian Village, as was the House, or 
Headquarters, of the Mission to the 
Hurons (which was located at that 
point), is deducable even more strongly, 
from the fact, that Father Ragueneau, 
in his report to his Superior, in 1648, 
uses, word for word, over more than a 

[44] 



score of printed lines, in locating the 
adjoining Indian tribes, the language 
of Sieur Gendron, written at least three, 
possibly four, years before, and pub- 
lished by Rocoles in 1660. 

That he did so, not plagiarizing, but 
with the knowledge and consent, and 
not improbably (in those parts of his 
letter which dealt with physical condi- 
tions) with the assistance, of Docteur 
Gendron, must be admitted by those 
who know from history of the splendid 
abilities, the exalted piety, and the noble 
character of Father Paul Ragueneau, 
S. J., who, after his labors amongst the 
Hurons were ended, became the Supe- 
rior of his Order at Quebec — that is, in 
Canada. 

A little further on, Docteur Gendron 
writes, — 

"Towards the south, and a little 
" towards the west, is the Neuter Nation, 
" whose villages, which are now on the 
" frontier, are only about thirty leagues 
" distant from the Hurons. It is forty 
" or fifty leagues in extent" [that is from 

[45] 



west to east, for it extended from the 
Detroit River to some distance east of 
the Niagara River]. 

Then he writes, what for the purpose 
of this article is the most interesting 
portion of the letters, as follows : 

' Almost south of the Neuter Nation is a 
' large lake, almost 200 leagues in cir- 
'cumference, called Erie, which is 
'formed from the Fresh Water Sea, 
' [Lake Huron] and falls, from a terrible 
' height, into a third lake called Onta- 
' rio, which we call St. Louis. 

" From the foam of the waters, roar- 
' ing at the foot of certain large rocks, 
' which are found at this place, is formed 

* a stone, or rather pulverized salt, of a 

* somewhat yellowish color, of great 

* virtue for healing wounds, fistulas, and 
' malignant ulcers. In this place, full 
' of horrors, live also certain savages, 
*who live only on elk, deer, buffalos, 

* and all other kinds of game that the 
' rapids drag and bring down to the 

* entrance of these rocks ; where the 
' savages catch them, without running 
*for them, more than sufficient for 
' their needs, and the maintenance of 
'strangers [Indians from other and 

[46] 



" distant tribes], with whom they trade 
"in these *Erie Stones' ['Pierres 
*'Eriennes'] — thus called because of 
"this lake — who carry and distribute 
" them to other Nations." 

In confirmation of the Doctor's state- 
ment that articles were brought to Ni- 
agara, for the purposes of trade, — in 
1903 there was opened an Indian 
Mound, on top of and close to the edge 
of the Mountain Ridge, some three and 
a half miles east of the Niagara River, 
on the Tuscarora Reservation, in the 
town of Lewiston, Niagara County, 
N. Y. It was a Burial Pit; and a Peace 
Burial Pit; more than probably dating 
from 1640, which was the last date 
of the ten-year Ceremonial Burials ob- 
served by the Neuters, who then owned 
and occupied all this Niagara Region; 
for before the expiration of the next ten 
year period, the Neuters had been anni- 
hilated by the Senecas. In it were 
found nearly 400 skulls, and the bones 
of probably an equal number of bodies, 
some articles of copper (made by the 

[47] 



French, and proving trade with them), 
many hundreds of shell beads, and 
other articles of Indian make, among 
them some made from large Conche 
Shells, such as are found on the shores 
of the Gulf of Mexico, and curiously 
enough three or four large, unbroken, 
Conche Shells. These latter, it is fair 
to assume, were brought nearly 2,000 
miles, to Niagara, there to be traded for 
those "Erie Stones" (and they were 
brought unbroken, so that their buyer 
could cut from them gorgets and other 
ornaments of the shape and size that 
suited his fancy), thus proving, that for 
some years, no one can pretend to say 
how many, perhaps centuries before 
Docteur Gendron wrote the second 
known reference to Niagara, the fame 
of the Cataract was widely known 
among the Indians of North America; 
even beyond the far-off, sunny lands, 
inhabited by the Arkansaws; clear to 
the mouths of the Mississippi, "The 
Father of Waters," and along the 
shores of the Gulf of Mexico. 

[48] 



So it was a Physician, in a letter writ- 
ten from an unnamed place in the wilds 
of Canada, to a friend, of whose name 
we are ignorant, in France, — the con- 
tents of which letter were, in a few 
years, to be published to the World, — 
that was, in date the second, though in 
print the fourth, man ever to refer 
directly to Niagara Falls. 

Yet, it is not surprising that it should 
have been so, for almost every instance 
in History tells us that, so far as newly 
discovered lands are concerned, it is the 
Explorer, or Empire-Builder, who first 
penetrates them, and the Priest soon 
follows the explorer, and the Physician 
soon follows the Priest. And that was 
exactly the order which was followed in 
the explorations of the Great-Lakes- 
Region of North America. 

The Quartette — the third was an 
Italian, the other three were French- 
men — who first referred directly to 
Niagara in print, stands — Champlain, 
Ragueneau, Bressani, Gendron, and 
in that order : — A Soldier of the Sword ; 

[49] 



two Soldiers of the Cross; and a Soldier 
of Medicine — though, so far as the 
dates when the letters of those four 
were written, and the information thus 
put in form which made its publication 
possible, are concerned, the Physician, 
Gendron, should occupy the second — 
instead of the fourth place. And, by- 
the-way, this Sieur Gendron was the 
first white Physician who is known to 
have lived anywhere in the western por- 
tion of this Country; the first white 
Physician in the limits of the present 
province of Ontario in Canada; and the 
first white Physician among the Indians 
of North America. 

In the case of the good Docteur Gen- 
dron — who, next to Champlain, was 
the earliest to mention Niagara, — it 
was not the scenic beauty of the Falls 
(he does not say that he ever saw them), 
but it was something in the direct line 
of his profession which caused him to 
refer to them. It was because, at their 
base, and created, as he was told, by 
their waters, there was found — and 

[50] 



there only — a panacea for many, if not 
for all, human ills. From his state- 
ments, it seems clear, that those " Erie 
Stones," which were "found only at Ni- 
agara," were themselves widely known 
amongst the Savages; and were a con- 
siderable article of trade between many, 
even to the most distant. Tribes. 

And, even as to the minds of the 
Aborigines who dwelt far from it, the 
triple importance of Niagara was that 
it necessitated a long Land Carriage or 
Portage in their canoe voyages, that it 
was a famous "trading place," and, 
that it was the only source of supply of 
those famous "Erie Stones"; even so, 
to the mind of Docteur Gendron, their 
main importance lay, not in their 
imagined grandeur, but in the authen- 
ticated statement, that it, and it alone, 
produced a stone or powder, efficacious 
in the treatment of certain ills; which 
was undoubtedly a very welcome and a 
very decided addition to the probably 
very limited stock of his Materia Med- 
ica. Thus, Niagara, which to-day is 

[51] 



famous the World over, for its Scenery, 
for its Botany, for its Geology, for its 
History, for its Hydraulic works, and 
lastly (and almost equally with its 
Scenery), for its Electrical developments, 
has also, through Docteur Gendron's 
"hasty letter" — written in 1644 or 
1645 — a distinct, and a very, very 
early claim to a place in the annals of 
the Healing Art — as it was known and 
practiced on the Continent of North 
America, during the first half of the 
17th Century; and also therefrom an- 
other distinct proof that the locality 
was an Aboriginal Center of Trade. 

This "Trade" in those "Erie Stones" 
must have been a most important thing 
for those Savages, — the Onguiaahras — 
who dwelt close to the Cataract at that 
time, and prior thereto. 

It is further a most interesting fact, 
that the "Trade" therein was the first 
recorded trade ever carried on at Niag- 
ara; and it is also most interesting to 
recall, that this first Trade, at this fam- 
ous spot, was in an article used for the 

[52] 



relief of human suffering, — a simple 
remedy, furnished by Nature, and "all 
ready for use." 

That Niagara product; which, possi- 
bly long before Columbus landed at 
San Salvador, probably during all the 
16th, certainly during the 17th Century; 
made the locality famous, far and wide; 
was among the earliest known of Amer- 
ica's healing remedies. It was evident- 
ly a leading, and a much-sought-for, 
prescription among the Aborigines. 
To-day, it has no value whatever. It is 
still to be found in abundance in the 
immediate vicinity of the Falls, in the 
Gorge below them; but no one seeks to 
gather it, save as a curiosity. 

But, in those early days, among the 
ignorant and phenominally superstitious 
Savages, those "Erie Stones," to be 
"found only at Niagara," seemed to 
them a special gift from the Great 
Spirit to his children. To the Savages, 
they were, veritably, "Big Medicine." 

Their fame lasted for many a year. 
They were gathered and traded in — 

[53] 



yes, and used — even until the middle of 
the 18th Century. As late as 1787, 
their reputation still clung to the great 
Fall. 

That year, Capt. Enys, of the 29th 
Regiment, British, was at Niagara, and 
wrote of them — they were no longer 
called "Erie Stones," but the substance 
was known as "petrified spray of the 
Falls,"— 

" On our return " [from the base of 
the Fall, and walking along the water's 
edge, under the cliff], "we employed 

* ourselves in picking up a kind of 

* stone, which is said to be the Spray of 
'the Fall, petrified, but whether it is 
' or no, I will not pretend to determ- 

* ine; this much I can say, that it 

* grows, or forms itself in cavities in the 

* cliff, about half way to the top, from 

* whence it falls from time to time; its 

* composition is a good deal like a piece 

* of white marble which has been burnt 

* in the fire, so that it may be pulver- 

* ized with ease. Whatever may be its 
'composition, it does not appear that 

* it will bear to be exposed to the air, 
'as some pieces which seem to have 

[&4] 



** fallen longer than the rest are quite 
" soft ; while such as had lately fallen 
" are of a much harder nature." 

Robert McCauslin, M. D., who, dur- 
ing and after the War of the Revolu- 
tion, spent nine years at Niagara — un- 
doubtedly as British Post Surgeon at 
Fort Niagara, — furnished a scientific 
paper entitled, "An account of an 
earthly substance, found near the Falls 
of Niagara, and vulgarly called the 
Spray of the Falls," to Dr. Benjamin 
Smith Barton; and he, on October 16, 
1789, communicated it to the American 
Philosophical Society; in whose Tran- 
sactions it was subsequently published. 
Dr. McCauslin specially noted, that 

" This substance is found, in great 
" plenty, everywhere about the bottom 
"of the Falls; sometimes lying loose 
" among the stones on the beach, and 
" sometimes adhering to the rocks, or 
"appearing between the layers upon 
"breaking them. The masses are of 
"various sizes and shapes, but seldom 
"exceed the bulk of a man's hand. 
" Sometimes they are of a soft substance 

[55] 



" and crumble like damp sugar; while 
** other pieces are found quite hard, and 
" of a shining, foliated appearance ; or 
"else opaque and resembling a piece of 
"burnt allum. It often happens that 
"both these forms are found in the 
"same mass. Pieces which are taken 
"up whilst soft soon become hard 
" by keeping; and they are never known 
" to continue long in a soft state, as far 
" as I have been able to learn/' 

He records that it is not found at all 
above the Falls, in the greatest amounts 
in the Gorge, close to the Falls; and in 
decreasing quantities as the distance 
from them increases; and is never found 
at a greater distance from them than 
perhaps a mile. From several scientific 
experiments which he made upon this 
substance, he deduced, 

" 1st, That this concrete is not an alka- 
" line earth, as it is not affected either 
" by the vitriolic or vegetable acids. 

" 2d, That we may, with more pro- 
" bability, say that it is a combination 
"of an acid with a calcareous earth, 
" and that it might with propriety be 
" ranked amongst the selenites." 

[56] 



He thought it was formed by the 
moisture arising from the Falls con- 
stantly and slowly filtering between the 
layers of rock, in whose crevices it de- 
posited its heavier portions, and that 
the violent agitation which the water 
had undergone disposed it to part with 
its earth more easily than it would 
otherwise do. 

He adds, "The circumstance of this 
" Spray not being found above the Falls 
" seems to suggest an opinion that that 
" part of the vapor which hangs upon 
" the surrounding rocks is the heaviest, 
" as being most loaded with earthy par- 
" tides, whilst the remainder which 
" mounts up is the purest and contains 
" little or no earth." 

Dewit Clinton, when he visited Niag- 
ara in 1810 — as a Member of the first 
Board of Commissioners, appointed by 
the State of New York, to report on the 
whole subject of the proposed Erie 
Canal, noted in his diary, 

" A beautiful white substance is found 
"at the bottom of the Falls; supposed 

[57] 



**by some to be Gypsum, and by the 
"vulgar, to be a concretion of foam, 
" generated by the forces of the Cata- 
" ract. But it is unquestionably part of 
" the limestone, dissolved and re-united." 

Since Clinton's time no attention 
has been paid to this substance as a 
curative agent. 

As a geological substance it is still 
collected, but with greater ease than 
formerly, for, besides being found on 
and below the face of the cliff, its 
existence in the limestone all over the 
vicinity of the Falls has been demon- 
strated by means of the huge excava- 
tions that have been made in the 
development of the various Power 
Plants at Niagara. 



[58] 



CHANGES OF CONTOUR 

WONDERFUL changes have 
taken place in the contour of 
the greater Fall at Niagara 
since Docteur Gendron recorded that 
the Indians traded in those "Erie 
Stones." The additional Fall, which 
Father Hennepin pictured in 1697, as 
pouring eastward from the Canadian 
end of the Horse Shoe Fall, was formed 
by the waters flowing around a large 
rock, which stood at the very edge of 
the cliff. Before the middle of the 
18th Century that rock had disinteg- 
rated and been swept away ; and that 
separate Fall then merged itself into the 
greater cascade ; as is shown in a view 
of Niagara accompanying Peter Kalm's 
description thereof in 1 75 1 . But it must 
be remembered that in Hennepin's 
time that Canadian end of the Horse 
Shoe Fall extended very much farther 

[B9] 



down the Gorge than it does to-day — 
probably 800 feet farther. That Fall 
then extended its shallow end down to 
where old Table Rock stood. Then 
the levels of all the upper lakes were 
higher than they are to-day, those 
levels having been considerably lowered 
through the white man's denudations 
of the forests in the Basin of the Great 
Lakes. As the downpour of Niagara 
thereby diminished in volume, that end 
of the Canadian Fall receded ; so that, 
as far as can be deduced, that Fall 
was some 400 feet shorter in contour 
(all taken off its western end) in 1900 
than it was when Hennepin saw it — two 
and a quarter centuries before. Since 
1900, the policy of the Province of 
Ontario, to turn its share of Niagara 
into cash — in renting out to corpor- 
ations the right to use the waters of 
the Cataract for the development of 
electrical horsepower ("at so much per") 
— has resulted in still further short- 
ening the contour of the Horse Shoe 
Fall, by another 400 feet. The con- 

[60] 



tour of that Fall was given by survey 
in 1840 as 3,060 feet. Hence, in Hen- 
nepin's time, it must have been about 
3,500 feet. To-day, owing to the filling 
in of the old river-bed, along the edge 
of the precipice at the Cataract's west- 
ern end, that contour line would not be 
more than 2,700 feet. 

But it must be recalled that the re- 
cession at the apex of that Fall has been 
very marked since 1840; and as that 
recession is V shaped it has added some- 
what — fully two hundred feet — to the 
figures of that old contour line; mak- 
ing the contour line of the Falls to-day 
about 2,900 feet. 

By reason of that shortening of that 
Fall, two scientific questions are 
brought up in regard to those deposits 
of gypsum, or "Petrified Spray of the 
Falls." 

First — to what extent has that con- 
cretion formed behind the falling water? 
Has it formed there in greater quanti- 
ties than it has where the face of the 
cliff has been open to the air? In 

[61] 



greater quantities might have been ex- 
pected, on account of the greater 
amount and absolute continuity of the 
moisture on the rocky face. The 400 
feet length of cliff, from which the 
waters have now been permanently 
shut off, furnishes the answer. Practi- 
cally, none of that concrete has ever 
accumulated in the crevices of the rock 
on the face of the cliff immediately 
behind the Falls. The currents of air, 
and the furious blasts of water which 
they create, rush constantly away from 
the under surface of the falling sheet, 
and continuously against the face of the 
cliff. These scour and cut away the 
rock, even as a sand blast would do, 
though more slowly. They allow no 
chance for deposits. The strata of the 
Clinton Formation (which commences 
at about the level of the water in the 
Gorge, and of the Niagara shale, which 
overlie it — the two combined having a 
depth of about eighty feet) are eaten 
away the faster. The eighty-feet-deep 
layer of Niagara Limestone, which over- 

[62] 



lies the shale, being harder, is eaten 
away slowly; its lower layers being 
attacked by the winds and waters from 
below (as the underlying shale disap- 
pears) and also on its face, yielding 
faster than the upper ones. 

That this concretion has always 
formed in the limestone, back from the 
face of the cliff, behind the falling sheet 
(where the blasts of wind and water 
cannot reach nor effect it) is certain. 

That it forms under the river bed, and 
back from the face of the gorge on 
both sides of the river, and wherever 
the water percolates through the upper 
layer of rock, is also certain. 

It is so found in the limestone 
(but not in the shale) wherever deep 
excavations have been made near the 
river in the vicinity of the Falls and 
wherever tunnels have been driven 
through the limestone — in the crev- 
ices and especially where a pocket 
or hollow space exists in that forma- 
tion. 

This process of eating away the lower 

[63] 



rocks, undermining the upper limestone, 
which, as its support is taken away, 
tumbles into the Gorge, shows the 
means by which the Falls gradually 
recede. 

It is shown to the best advantage in 
the Cave of the Winds, which, during 
the past thirty years, by this wind-and- 
water-blast process, has been enlarged 
to four times its former size. Some 
day the layer of rock at the top of that 
cave will fall ; the edge of the Luna 
Island Fall will be thus moved back a 
number of feet ; the Cave of the Winds 
will become merely a narrow space be- 
tween the outward-curving fall of water 
and the perpendicular rock ; and the 
wind-and-water-blast will continue its 
erosive work on that rocky face ; — and 
in the course of years will again pro- 
duce a distinct cave. 

The other scientific question — which 
the future will answer — is. How fast 
does this Niagara concrete form? With 
that 400 feet length of cliff on the 
Canadian shore — which was formerly 

[64] 



covered by the end of the Horse-shoe 
Fall — exposed to the air and to obser- 
vation (the outer end of those crevices 
in its face being now free from any such 
deposit); with the extensive excavations 
on the debris slope for the Power House 
below the bank, exposing new sur- 
faces, where little such deposit now 
appears; with other probable excava- 
tions in connection with the power de- 
velopment, exposing similar surfaces at 
other points along the Gorge; it will 
be possible to approximately determine 
the yearly amount of accumulation and 
deposit of this ancient Niagara product. 
For that deposit will go on as ceaselessly 
as it has been going on, ever since the 
time — possibly many thousands of years 
ago — when the waters of a great lake 
(which was formed by the melting of 
the ice sheet) covered all this region ; 
finally breaking over its northern bar- 
rier at the Lewiston escarpment, where, 
seven miles from its present location, 
Niagara was born. 



[65] 



STILL A TRADE CENTER 

LE SIEUR GENDRON, of whom 
J we know nothing more than is 
contained in the printed letters, 
noted before, passed away many a year 
ago; but at this late date, some two 
and a half centuries after his death, a 
lover of Niagara, in his search for and 
his collecting of early books that in 
any way refer to its famous Cataract, 
secured a copy of De Rocoles' "America, 
the Third Part of the World," 1660, 
which contains the first publication of 
Docteur Gendron's interesting letters 
from, and about, the Huron Country, in 
Canada. Therein he found this remark- 
able reference to the Waterfall, — which 
was quoted verbatim from the good 
Docteur's "hasty letter," by the State 
Historian of King Louis of France, — and 
is thereby enabled to add an hitherto 
unknown link (which turns out to be 

[66] 



the second) in the chain of the earliest 
references to Niagara Falls; and so, 
both in History and in Medicine, to 
assign to good Docteur Gendron, a 
place (next alongside of the great 
Founder of Quebec) in Niagara's Temple 
of Fame. For the Sieur Gendron 
probably wrote from actual knowledge; 
he had probably, through some Huron 
emissary, secured some of those "Erie 
Stones," that "Petrified Spray of the 
Falls" in trade, at Niagara; he had 
doubtless tried the healing qualities 
thereof on some of his Savage Patients 
— and let us hope that this Niagara 
Remedy proved efficacious, and justi- 
fied its wide-spread reputation. At any 
rate, in recording its uses, and its distri- 
bution by "Trade," and by probably 
himself using it in his Practice — limited 
then to the Huron Indians; and the 
few Frenchmen (perhaps a score or 
more) who then made their headquar- 
ters at the Home of the Jesuit Mission 
to the Hurons, — he showed, even as 
many a good Physician of later days 

[67] 



has done, that he was a believer in, and 
user of, every one of Nature's Remedies, 
as furnished by her to man, and in 
their simplest forms; and if that Niagara 
product benefited his savage patients 
(mainly because they had faith that it 
would do so) surely the good Docteur 
earned his professional fee — which he 
probably had to take in trade — that is, 
in furs. 

Niagara, meaning thereby the Niagara 
Frontier, or, more properly, that portion 
thereof which extended from Lake 
Ontario to about two miles above the 
Falls (which included Fort Niagara, and 
the whole of the famous Portage around 
the Cataract) even in Aboriginal days, 
before the first Fort Niagara was built, 
when the Indians applied the word 
Onguiaahra to the same territory, by 
reason of its accessibility, its central 
location, its Portage and its "Erie 
Stones," was widely known as a "Center 
of Trade." When the French became 
the masters of this region its main im- 
portance lay in its portage; and the 

[68] 



same is true of it under British rule ; 
and also under United States ownership, 
down to 1826, when the Erie Canal was 
completed. 

And during all those three periods 
it was indeed a Trade Center. For over 
it passed on their westward way, all the 
soldiers, French, British, and American, 
who built or won, and garrisoned every 
fort and trading post in the West. All 
the cannon, equipments, arms, ammu- 
nition, clothing of all kinds, tools, most 
of the food (all of it save the fish they 
caught, the game they shot, and the 
few vegetables they raised) which sus- 
tained life in the poorly-fed garrisons 
in those far off posts on the upper 
Lakes; most of the necessities, everyone 
of the luxuries, — every pound of coffee, 
of tea, of sugar, of tobacco, of salt, of 
flour, of dried and salted meats, every 
bit of medicine, every gallon of rum; — 
all those and many other articles had 
to go to them, annually, by "way of 
Niagara." There was no other feasible 
way of transporting goods to the West. 

169] 



In fact there was no other way, save by 
the Ottawa and through the Georgian 
Bay; and on the Ottawa, there were 
forty-two portages, whereas via Niagara 
there was but the one. And under 
both French and British rule, Niagara 
was a great Center of Trade, in furs, 
and an enormous trade it was. Both 
the military and the commercial trade of 
half a Continent flowed by its doors; 
and both, going eastward and west- 
ward, required unloading and tran- 
sporting over its seven miles of portage. 
At one time, in 1764, when provisions 
were being forwarded to the West for 
the use there of Gen. Bradstreet's Army, 
it is recorded that over 5,000 barrels of 
provisions alone lay at Fort Schlosser, 
the upper terminus of Niagara's portage, 
awaiting shipment to the West. By Ni- 
agara also went — had to go, for besides 
being the only feasible route, it was the 
only safe way, for it had military pro- 
tection, — all the traders, with their 
boat loads of cheap merchandize; men 
who spent months at a time in journey- 

[70] 



ing among the tribes in the Northwest, 
trading their wares for valuable furs; 
all of which peltries, in turn, they had 
to bring east " by Niagara." 

With the opening of the Erie Canal, 
in 1826, all that portaging business at 
Niagara disappeared; and Niagara, that 
is the territory immediately adjoining 
the Cataract, became a famous Water- 
ing Place; which character it has ever 
since retained, and always will retain. 

In the early days of that scenic 
glory it still preserved a tinge of its 
ancient aspect, as "An Aboriginal Cen- 
ter of Trade." For many years Indian 
bead-work was one of the main attrac- 
tions offered in the Bazaars there. And 
the elder generation of visitors will re- 
call the familiar sight of aged Indian 
Squaws, and dusky Indian Maidens, 
who daily, during the season of travel, 
sat at various points along the route of 
the tourist — on the steep banks of the 
road leading up the hill to Goat Island, 
beneath the trees, close to the rapids, on 
Luna Island, alongside the path leading 

[71] 



down the bank on Goat Island to old 
Terrapin Tower, and at various points 
around the Ferry House, and what is 
now Prospect Park — offering for sale, 
crude bead work, pincushions, mocas- 
sins, etc. 

Often a pappoose, strapped to the 
board which formed the back of its 
picturesque but doubtless uncomfortable 
cradle, gazed stolidly at the pale faced 
visitor, as the cradle leant up against 
the foot of a tree, or swung suspended 
from some low-hanging branch. The 
"Braves" at home then made the toy 
canoes, the bows and arrows, the quivers, 
the war clubs and tomahawks, which 
the squaws also disposed of to tourists 
as souvenirs of Niagara. 

Those "Squaw Traders" were a most 
picturesque feature of Niagara, and the 
fact that those descendants of a passing 
Race now seldom or never sit by the 
roadside and offer their wares directly 
to the visitor is a distinct loss to the 
artistic environment of the Cataract. 

In those days also some enterprising 

[72] 



genius devised the scheme of manufact- 
uring trinkets — such as watch charms, 
seals, etc., — out of that Niagara gypsum, 
or "Petrified Spray of the Falls"; there- 
by unconsciously reviving the Aborigi- 
nal Trade in that substance, which Doc- 
teur Gendron had so early recorded — 
only this time without any pretension 
that it possessed any healing qualities 
— but that trade was neither so famous 
nor so wide spread, nor so long con- 
tinued, as the original. 

The projectors of the Village at the 
Falls of Niagara, named it Manchester, 
in the belief that by reason of its water 
power (and they then contemplated 
the use of only a fractional part there- 
of — not enough to have offered any 
danger of "Ruining Niagara") it would 
develop into a manufacturing center 
which should rival its British prototype. 

To-day, through its hydraulic devel- 
opments, mainly devoted to the genera- 
tion of electric power, Niagara has again 
become a really great Center of Trade. 
How great this locality is destined to 

[73] 



become— when the stupendous works, 
now either in operation or under con- 
struction, shall have been completed up 
to the limits of their rights — whether 
that enormous development (over a 
million horse-power on both sides of the 
river, equal to one-quarter of the total 
estimated power of Niagara) shall 
build up a great International Manu- 
facturing Community within close sight 
of the ever-ascending spray cloud; or 
whether the most of that power shall 
be utilized at far distant points, and 
Niagara be known commercially rather 
as the Producer of Power than as itself 
an Enormous Center of Trade — Time 
alone will tell. But, however great or 
less that growth shall be — by reason of 
its power, of its central location, of its 
accessibility, of its more than a million 
annual visitors— it will always be, 
what it is to-day, what it was in "Abo- 
riginal days," a "Center of Trade." 



[74] 



NIAGARA 

Art ahori^'inal 
Center of Trade 



LB S '08 



